My husband grew up in a poor immigrant neighborhood in Eretz Yisrael and attended the local co-ed mamlachti dati (government religious) school.

But for most of high school, he wanted a more Torah environment.

So the day after graduating, he made his way to a large Litvish yeshivah.

Wearing his dark beige pants, a non-white shirt (with no suit jacket), sneakers, and a knitted kippah, he headed toward the yeshivah office and asked to enroll. The person there took one look at him, assumed my husband made a mistake in his choice of yeshivah, and politely rejected him on the spot.

Despondent, my husband trudged out the door and plopped himself down on the yeshivah steps, wondering where he could possibly turn now.

At that moment, the Rosh Yeshivah arrived up those same steps and looked at the glum Moroccan teen sitting there in his knitted kippah and non-yeshivish clothes.

The Rosh Yeshivah asked my husband if he was okay and what was wrong.

My husband replied that he tried to enroll in the yeshivah, but was rejected on the spot.

The Rosh Yeshivah pondered this for a moment, then asked, "When was your last day of school?"

"Yesterday," said my husband.

Knowing that it was customary for recent high school graduates to spend days or weeks after graduation living it up and touring around (rather than searching out a yeshivah), the Rosh Yeshivah said, "You're accepted. Come with me."

And he escorted my husband back to the yeshivah office, where he enrolled.

My husband spent the next few years there shteiging away in front of a Gemara.

Sometimes, it takes a true talmid chacham to see past the externals and into a soul thirsting for Torah.

And if you really want the right thing for the right reason, Hashem helps.___________For a related post of how true talmidei chachamim notice and care about others (rather than being holier-than-thou snobs), please see:The Behavior of Truly Great People

Thank you very much to astute reader, Emunah, who requested this topic in a previous comment.________

The last time I played a real video game, it was at a pizza restaurant. My siblings and I convinced our parents to let us each have a turn playing the most advanced and most expensive game, which looked exactly like a cartoon that featured a blond prince wielding a sword. My sisters and I couldn't get past the first minute of the game, which consisted of getting the prince to jump onto a moving wooden disc. Our brother got a bit farther than that, before the bitter "GAME OVER" appeared.

Both frustrating and disappointing, it helped me lose interest in video games, which I'd never been good at anyway. Later, Tetris came along and I could get lost in that (and actually showed some skill with it), but after the initial burst of enthusiasm, it became yet another take-it-or-leave-it activity.

So when I first heard about "gaming" as a culture and video game addiction, I was still picturing Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. I imagined teenage guys addicted to video games that looked like this:

Or maybe, at the most, something like this:

Boy, was I wrong!

I think I first realized that video games had developed much more complexity when I was looking for story plot ideas, and a blogger recommended a book of game plots.

GAME plots?

Yes!

As I read through the plots, I marveled at the complex and intriguing storylines.

How could little pixelated characters jumping from level to level actually star in their own full-fledged plot? (Remember, I was still thinking Donkey Kong and Pac-Man.)

Little did I know that the world of gaming provides lifelike interaction on a level never experienced before.

Who Plays Video Games?

There are very real & problematic effects of video games on people. But first, let's look at who likes to play video games and why.

And my assumption of gamers as teenage males also needed some correction:

77% of males age 18-29 play video games, with 33% of them self-identifying as "gamers."

57% of females age 18-29 play video games, with 9% of them self-identifying as "gamers."

58% of all those age 30 to 49 play video games

40% of all those age 50 to 64 play video games

25% of all those 65 or older play video games

Interestingly, women over 50 are more likely to play video games than men over 50:

38% vs 29%

Why are Games So Addictive?

Social Interaction & CollaborationRather than playing against a computer, the most popular and addictive games are role-playing games whose characters are played by real people around the world. During the game, you get to know other people and their personalities. Characters flirt with each other, help (or abandon) each other, and interact in myriad other ways.

In fact, gamers develop real friendships with other players, and some have even married! (Not surprisingly, there is even an app to facilitate this for those interested in finding true love with their fellow players.)

To paraphrase the attitude of this app designer: "Instead of struggling with a conversation over coffee, it's less awkward to investigate a new dungeon together."

And while the character images are often otherworldly, you might feel that your choice of green monster with machete ears expresses something about you that only your fellow gamer can understand and appreciate.

The addictive side of this is that the player resists letting his group down.

Not playing can effect the same feeling that a necessary football player might have about backing out of a key game in real life.

This is based on a description from a popular game:Jay and his surrogate daughter Eileen, must traverse a post-apocalyptic America to deliver a possible cure for a fungal virus that has ruined the nation. Jay is prepared to do anything to protect Eileen.

Or this:This is a neo-noire detective action-adventure involving a US army veteran who joins the homicide department after finishing his mission in WWII. Later, he discovers that his partner is a crooked cop and he also traces drug smuggling by Marines in his former unit, most of whom are assassinated by mobsters. Finally, he chases a kidnapper through underground river tunnels while overcoming underground flooding and thugs in order to save the day.

But will he survive?

And you get to be part of this heart-stopping action and high drama.

Very Real & Compelling GraphicsYou really are starring in your own story.

Today's games are lifelike movies.

Look at these screenshots of games:

Real EmotionThe combination of compelling graphics and storylines provide the same effect that a compelling movie or novel does: emotional involvement.

In one of the most popular games, gamers around the world protested when the creators killed off a beloved character.

Gamers describe tears welling up in their eyes when two game characters express their love to each other or when another game character sacrifices her life for the other characters. Or describing "heartbreak" during a silent moment broken by the ringing of a phone which, when answered, emits the sound of your missing "daughter" crying out to you.

In other scenarios, gamers confess that they couldn't stop smiling or suppress elation during touching moments between characters.

In horror games, gamers note that they fear to be alone while playing.

Gamers emphasize the heightened pulse or strong emotions because they feel like they're actually serving on the front lines for something they believe in.

The Bowen Research study found that the most common emotions aroused in video games were:

competitiveness

violence/excitement

accomplishment

hate

sadness

All fake, of course.

Yet these emotions ranked above love or spirituality, which are also experienced during gaming, but not as much as those mentioned above.

When Rabbi Wallerstein advised one gaming addict to make aliyah to Israel and serve in the IDF, rather than playing war games all day, the young man demurred.

"Why not?" asked Rabbi Wallerstein.

The young man replied that he didn't want to actually risk his life or suffer hardship, he just wanted to feelings without any actual risk.

Those of us uninvolved in the gaming world can turn up our nose at the idea of emotional attachment to video game characters and scenes, but it's really no different than crying when a character dies or finds true love in a novel or movie. Likewise, people (okay, maybe just Americans?) get all pumped up with patriotism and false feelings of valor during particularly rousing scenes in patriot movies.

RewardsVideo games offer all kinds of rewards, both actual and emotional.

Players enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when working up from level to level.

Top players earn bonus points, in-game rewards, or even actual financial rewards from the game's creators via tournaments played for actual cash prizes.

Undefined EndingsPlayers often play according to a schedule. (The different time zones worldwide complicate this, forcing players to play when they should be sleeping or doing other things.) But while they need to meet to start the game at a certain time, the ending depends on unknowns, like how successful the group will be at meeting all the criteria (both known and unknown) in order to make it to the next level.

In other words, short spurts of playing don't reap benefits and even lead to disappointment and other negative feelings.

Are Video Games Bad for You?

The studies aren't clear whether video games are wholly bad for you, nor what the ultimate effect is on the human brain.

Some video games seem to improve certain functions IF they're specially designed to do so. For example, there are video games that seem to improve dyslexia.

But some gamers themselves admit that the games increase aggression. The initial war games were created by the military to give combat soldiers virtual training and to accustom them to killing so they'd be less traumatized in actual battle.

That's chilling, isn't it?

Obviously, role-playing realistic war or horror games are going to affect a person's psyche, whether they mean for it to or not.

When the mass shootings first popped up in American schools, restaurants, and movie theaters, a link between them and video games appeared, then disappeared.

Researching this led me to the more common and definite link between psychotropic medication and homicidal idealization.

At the same time, it's easy to understand how a young man suffering from schizophrenia or depression could become worse by role-playing these super-realistic horror or war games, or even hate-filled racist games, whether on medication or not. Many of the shooters were also gamers, which is why so many people jumped to blaming video games for the massacres.

(Again, in all or nearly all mass shootings in America, the murderer suffered from some kind of mental illness and played video games -- in addition to taking medication -- prior to the shooting.)

In another study, participants demonstrated increased apathy and decreased attention and concentration when tested.

The apathy and absorption isn't a joke. When a Taiwanese man died after playing a video game at an Internet cafe for 3 days, no one noticed for the first few hours. Because he sometimes fell asleep face down during his gaming binge, no one realized that his last face-down position was in fact death. (CCTV cameras showed that he struggled before he died, an act also unnoticed by fellow gamers and workers.) It was only when his body sprawled on the table and entered the stiffening phase that workers noticed and thought to call the paramedics. When paramedics arrived to cart the body out, the other gamers never even paused.

In another Taiwanese Internet cafe, a gamer lay dead for 10 hours before anyone noticed. Fellow gamers continued to play even as that body was carted out and the gamers didn't even realize that anything had happened until forensic police came to cordon off the area. Yet even then, many gamers refused to stop playing and stayed where they were.

Other studies indicate that it's not the violence of the video game that inspires aggressive behavior, but the feelings of frustration and failure that occur upon losing a game.

Finally, there have been a few deaths brought on by playing video games in one position for a shocking number of hours without eating or moving much.

Brain ChangesI want to start off by saying that brain studies are iffy. There's a lot that researchers still don't know or understand about the brain. Having said that, studies of the brain and gaming yield thought-provoking results...

The following studies were conducted upon people who didn't usually play video games and who, for the study, played for 1-2 hours a day.

Many studies show a link between violent video games and increased aggression, but these brain studies aimed to discover the physiological reason why violent video games increase aggression.

One study indicated negative changes in the frontal lobe in people who played a violent game for 10 hours over a week's duration. Disturbingly, this change in the brain persisted into the second week, despite the participants not playing video games at all.

Another study indicated negative changes in the parts of the brain that control attention, inhibition of impulses, and emotions.

Behaviorally, these participants demonstrated increased apathy and decreased attention and concentration when tested.

One researcher noted that the brains changed to resemble the brains of teens who suffered from destructive sociopathic disorders.

Gaming Gains?

Are there any benefits to playing video games?

As noted above, strategy games or games specifically created to improve cognitive function do seem to do just that. There are studies that show decreased dementia, improved visual attention, improved cognitive function, improved treatment of dyslexia, increase in gray matter of the brain (which allegedly improves cognitive function in specific areas of the brain), and so on.

And some studies show that gamers demonstrate improved visual attention overall, regardless of the game played.

Yet the official scientific jury is still out as to whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Video Games & Fatal Violence

While I still believe that psychotropic medications are the main culprit behind particularly violent behavior (like mass shootings), it's chilling how often video games seem to be involved.

Like with the teenager who shot to death his grandfather along with 6 other people (and wounded 7 more) on the Red Lake Reservation in Minnesota, he committed this slaughter after having his dosage of Prozac increased. He was also on Ritalin. He spent a lot of time creating and uploading graphically violent animation on the Internet, animation based on violent video games he enjoyed, one of which enjoys global popularity.

Other shooters killed people according to the same methods used by gamers to kill characters in a video game. Since intricate role-playing violent video games came out, at least 14 mass murderers in America showed a history of addiction to the most popular role-playing violent video games prior to their rampage. One even described a violent video game as a place where he felt "comfortable and secure."

Ugh.

It seems like people who already have a negative grasp of reality (a combination of their life circumstances, their diagnosis of mental illness, and their intake of psychotropic medication) respond badly when such realistic role-playing violent games are added to the mix.

And there's no realistic way of preventing angry, depressed, deluded, medicated people from accessing video games.

What's the Ultimate Issue with Gaming?

So what can we take away from all this?

Video games definitely affect the brain, though it's not certain exactly how and how much.

Video games are set up to be addictive, both emotionally and cerebrally.

Video games reward players -- (emotionally, in the brain, and sometimes even financially)

Video games can easily be more compelling, interesting, comfortable, enjoyable, and feel more meaningful than real life.

The spiritual problem with any kind of video game is the same problem with any distraction (no matter how innocent):It wastes your time and emotions indulging in meaninglessness when you could be advancing yourself in some other way.

(And I really think that any activity is a serious problem if it prevents you from noticing or caring that someone has died in your immediate vicinity, God forbid.)

May we all gain our all our pleasures from spiritually pure sources -- and really enjoy them!___________

In his book, Ahavat Kedumim: A Commentary on the Story of the Lost Princess, Rav Ofer Erez writes:

It doesn't matter what happened externally. If in the same moment, we've already glued ourselves to the good and we protest against the bad and cry out to God:"Abba [Daddy/Tatty]! I want only You!" -- then the bad deeds are canceled out.

***You fell?

Get up.

How can you get up?

Tell God: "Abba, I am such a good neshamah [soul], how can it be that I have any tendency to get angry?" [Or whatever negative tendency you want to rid yourself of -- MR]

And the Holy One Blessed be He responds: "You're right. That wasn't you at all. Come with Me and I'll bring you to the place that's right for you."

***Our desires [ratzonot] and yearnings [kisufim] are what truly move the creation, the entire world.

Desire [ratzon] is a very, very great act because desire is the greatest force in the creation of the world, higher than thought.

A thought is an intellectual act. It comes from the mind.

But desire, will, yearning...this is an emotional act. It comes from the heart.

The above is my translation and any errors are also mine.The above quotations can be found on pages 90,100-101, 103.Rav Ofer Erez's English site is HERE.

In his book, Ahavat Kedumim: A Commentary on the Story of the Lost Princess, Rav Ofer Erez writes:

"The Holy Ari writes in Shaar Hagilgulim that every person who comes to the world comes for the sake of a personal and unique tikkun [rectification], and one person does not resemble another. Each person have a personal path and way to rectify and to walk for which he came to the world."

Later, Rav Erez writes:

"Rebbe Natan says: All our spiritual descents are in order to perform a 'redemption of the captives.' This means to redeem the sparks of holiness, which are very lofty spiritual forces that got lost in tumah [spiritual impurity], and in order to bring them back to holiness, we must descend to there. And then, when a person does teshuvah [repents], he brings them back together with himself."

A century ago, one of the charedi leaders of yore (maybe it was Rav Shmuel Salant?) was heard talking to a group of Syrian chachamim (sages) in Hebrew using their Sefardi pronunciation.

Why was this a big deal?

In 1913, what later became known as "The Language War" began when the Haifa Institute of Technology decided to adopt German as their official language of instruction. (I know, I know...)

Later, it turned to a tug-of-war between Yiddish and Hebrew. Assimilated Jewish linguists insisted on secularizing the holy Hebrew language and instill it as the official language of Eretz Yisrael.

Others objected the secularization of the holy tongue, along with the unsavory political agenda behind it.

Some also felt that using Hebrew for mundane talk or in places like the bathroom profaned the holy tongue. (They weren't wrong. My kids happily chattered away in Hebrew in the bathtub and Hebrew is the language in Israeli discotheques, smutty movies, and coarse stand-up routines.)

Contradiction or Communication?

So why did a great rav who came firmly down on the side of the pro-Yiddish camp, a sage known for his courtesy toward others, yet who when addressed in Hebrew by someone with an agenda, refused to answer in any language -- why did he turn around and all of the sudden start not only speaking in Hebrew, but speaking with a totally different and unfamiliar pronunciation (when he was strict about using Ashkenazi pronunciation in his prayers)?

As the rav explained, the Sefardi chachamim spoke classical Hebrew, the beautiful Hebrew of the commentators and ancient Sages. They spoke that language as their mother tongue and according to their traditional pronunciation.

He also spoke Sefardi-accented Hebrew with regular non-Yiddish-speaking Sefardim.

The pro-Yiddish rav spoke to them in kind because they couldn't know Yiddish (so that was a practical reason) and because the whole language divide wasn't about language, but about politics, "isms," and an anti-Torah agenda, all of which had nothing to do with the Sefardi community.

Yet when Hebrew could be spoken as a need by people who really knew how to use the language, the rav happily spoke Hebrew and spoke it using the pronunciation best understood by his fellow Sefardi Jews.

A Jew's Official Language

The great leader of what became known as the charedi stream of Orthodox Judaism, and a tremendous tzaddik, Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, sided with the pro-Yiddish side due to the assimilationist agenda behind the leaders of pro-Hebrew side.

Yet in response to a British government survey which asked what language was spoken by the respondent, Rav Sonnenfeld not only answered "Hebrew," but advised others to answer the same--even though Rav Sonnenfeld's conversational language was indeed Yiddish.

When some of the pro-Yiddish camp objected, Rav Sonnenfeld replied, "What can I do? When I speak to God, I speak only in Hebrew--how can I deny that?!"

Obviously, Rav Sonnenfeld considered his main language to be the one in which he spoke to his Creator.

At one point, Rav Sonnefeld mused that it was perhaps a mistake for the religious community NOT to have adopted Hebrew immediately upon arrival in Eretz Yisrael. "By doing so, we would've pre-empted the irreligious camp...We would have then not been forced into taking a negative stand against Hebrew being the official language."

But these things are hard to predict.

Lessons Learned?

Anyway, what I learned from all this was:

Don't get caught up in the technicalities of a gadol's opinion; understand the real motivation behind the opinion.

A gadol is coming from a place of love and not a place of fanaticism with getting all yipped-up on misplaced zealotry.

*If you'd like to know what "nusach" means, please see HERE. This post simplified it to 2 basic nusachs, but there are several more._____________

At a Tehillim/Psalms gathering for women I attended in the US, the woman leading the Tehillim-recital was a Yemenite-Israeli woman who taught at an Ashkenazi school (that accepted all Jews as long as they were frum) and was married to a yeshivish Askenazi.

This meant that she was competent in both ways of Hebrew pronunciation.

She lead the Tehillim in a pleasant sing-song and most charmingly of all, she was so into the davening that the words flowed out in whatever pronunciation naturally flowed forth.

This means that she said: "Shir Hama'alois" -- with the second "a" pronounced as the classic Yemenite guttural "ayin," followed by "ois" instead of "ot."

It was obvious that she had no idea she was mixing nusachs.

It was delicious. Here was Am Echad in one person.

Communicating in the "Right" Nusach

Now, I realize that sticklers for nusach will bristle about the importance of staying within one nusach for davening.

And that is important for formal davening.

But if you're equally comfortable in both, then when immersing yourself in the uplifting heart of Tehillim, both might flow forth naturally. And really, it's better to just immerse yourself in your love of Hashem than to hold yourself back and get caught up in the technicalities of consistent pronunciation.

For me, sometimes "Shabbos" is easier to say than "Shabbat." Especially if I want to describe something as "Shabbosy." "Shabbaty" just doesn't feel the same.

I still find "tsnius" (modesty) more comfortable to say than "tsnee-OOT" because "tsnius" is how I first learned the word.

But all that depends who I'm talking to because it's important to say things in the way most comfortable for the other person.

Likewise, when speaking with a Chassidish Yerushalmi friend, I try to greet her with "Gut Shabbos," even if she's greeting me with "Shabbat Shalom."

In fact, my Chassidish neighbors always use Sefardi pronunciation when speaking to me and other Sefardi neighbors. They also smoothly turn the conversation from Yiddish to Hebrew if a non-Yiddish-speaker arrives, including when they address each other (which they normally would in Yiddish) in front of the non-Yiddish-speaker.

It's all just a friendly way of respecting one's fellow.

When my children first started attending a Sefardi school, the Moroccan ganenet used to wave to me out the window of the van, calling out, "Gut Shabbos!" as they sped by on Friday afternoons.

She didn't need to do that because despite my Ashkenazi ethnicity and American nationality, I'm not frum from birth (i.e., I didn't grow up with "Gut Shabbos!") and I'm married to a Moroccan who davens in a Sefardi synagogue, and we happily send our children to a Sefardi school and I am quite comfortable with "Shabbat Shalom!" and general Sefardi pronunciation.

But in her experience, Ashkenazi Americans say "Gut Shabbos!" and she wanted me to feel comfortable and accepted.

Very nice!

As always, it's the heart that counts.

Language Foibles from the Heart

When my husband and I are were temporarily rabbi and rebbetzin (or is it rabbanit?), one of our congregants was this lovely 90-year-old lady named Shayna. (She attended our Sefardi synagogue because it was within walking distance and I'm not sure that she was aware of the differences. To her, it was a kosher synagogue with a mechitza and an Orthodox rabbi, and that's all that mattered.)

During Sukkot, she would come up to me to wish me a good year among other good things, and she did so in Yiddish. I only got the gist of her exact words ("a gut yahr!"), but I remember the feeling of warmth and pleasure that soaked through me as she leaned her smiling wizened face toward me with her wrinkled hand on my arm and spoke to me from her heart.

In Shayna's experience, frum people bless each other in Yiddish. So it never occurred to her that she shouldn't speak to me in Yiddish, especially since I was the rebbetzin -- no matter that I came from a secular English-only background (which she didn't know about) and that I was married to a Moroccan-Israeli and that we were standing in a Sefardi synagogue.

And I loved her for it.

Conversely, if you are in Israel and you greet your Sefardi neighbor with "Gut Shabbos", she might get offended. Why? Because then it feels like you're imposing your nusach on her, as if her nusach isn't good enough. Also, there's this implication that Yiddish is the proper language as opposed to Hebrew (or the Jewish-style Arabic common among Moroccans).

And sadly, there are indeed some Ashkenazim with that attitude, which is why your Sefardi neighbor isn't being oversensitive when she gets miffed about your perfectly friendly "Gut Shabbos." (Although she should still give you the benefit of the doubt, that you were just expressing your ahavat Yisrael in the best way you knew how. Or that you just forgot how it might come off to her.)

Then around another Sukkot in Eretz Yisrael, a Chassidish-American acquaintance came up to me and started wishing me all sorts of nice things for the coming year -- in Yiddish.

Ironically, I suddenly felt irritated.

I don't know Yiddish, I fumed silently. Why was she putting me in this uncomfortable position of nodding blankly and not knowing how to respond to her gush of words because I mostly didn't understand? She knows I'm originally from an "out of town" location in America and that I'm firmly in the Sefardi community here in Eretz Yisrael. Why on earth would I understand all the Yiddish coming out of her mouth?

This admittedly insignificant incident left me disgruntled.

But why? What was wrong with me all of the sudden?

Why, when Shayna did EXACTLY the same thing, it imbued me with warm fuzzies, yet when this acquaintance did it, I got all flustered and resentful?

Even stranger, I actually like Yiddish. I enjoy trying to speak it with my friends' children who only know Yiddish.

So why did I all of the sudden have a problem with Yiddish?

I guess it's because it's the heart that counts.

Shayna is brimming with goodness, so when she talks to you in the language of her choice, then all her goodness just gushes forth into you. And Shayna was speaking to me in Yiddish because she thought that was the best way to convey her good wishes; she had no idea I didn't understand. (Ditto with the Sefardi ganenet above.)

Yet this acquaintance tended to be firmly entrenched in her own world and in her way of doing things. She and her husband were used to being leaders of their community and expressing good wishes in Yiddish was the RIGHT way to do things, gosh darn it, whether the listener understood and whether the listener was comfortable or not.

In other words, she wasn't reaching out to me, she was asserting herself over me (and vicariously, over a whole large group of fellow Jews).

Was this intentional? Likely not. Some people are just very self-absorbed and so used to holding on to their own thing (which, if you've lived frum in America, you need to do to resist the pull of secular American culture), that they don't realize when they've overstepped.

Peel carrots and potatoes, then boil them with the egg until soft enough to cut and eat with pleasure, yet not too mushy.

(This takes around 30 minutes.)

*You can dice the pickle during this time.

If using frozen or fresh peas, you can either add them to the boiling carrots, potatoes, and egg, or you can pour boiling water over them and let them sit covered for at least 15 minutes, depending on how you like your peas.

When I was attending chinuch classes, I heard a lot of questions along the lines of, "But my parents did that with us, and we still turned out okay. So why is it suddenly so bad to do that now?"

Just to be clear, none of these mothers wanted to do whatever unpleasantness their parents had done with them (whether it was hitting, yelling, making children wear out-of-style second-hand clothes, or anything like that), but they were legitimately trying to understand why these unwanted acts were suddenly so damaging.

As you might have guessed, there was never a real answer. Mostly hemming and hawing about a "different environment" and "things have changed" (oh, those ambiguous undefinable "things"!) and "it's a different generation."

All true, but not terribly satisfying because Jews kept immigrating into different environments throughout history and also, harmful movements within Jewry (particularly Easter Europe) kept rearing their ugly heads (like haskalah, Reform, Communism, etc) and snatching Jewish souls.

(And I don't blame the chinuch people, up to their ears in the problems of this generation, for trying their best to answer questions they didn't really know how to answer.)

Anyway, I wondered the exact same things and for the exact same reasons: I didn't want to do XYZ, but why indeed were common trials for children suddenly the reason for them to go flying off the derech?

Why was davka my generation of mothers being racked up to such a high standard?

And it wasn't just in parenting either. A woman's role suddenly expanded to include many more roles and expectations. Conducting proper shalom bayit and maintaining good mental and physical health also became fraught with challenges and contradictory advice.

And the constant refrain: "But our grandmothers didn't (work outside the home, exercise, eat spelt, fill-in-the-blank) and they were fine. So why do we need to ____?

Yet at the same time we were being told to somersault through all these hoops, nothing seemed to work (or only worked temporarily).

And so we heard our Sages quoted regarding the times of Mashiach: Chutzpah will increase, shalom bayis problems will increase, finances will go nuts, and so on.

That just makes Hashem sound capricious.

WHY do we have all these problems?

Is God just a big meanie? No, that can't be.

But while I can't know the deep kabbalistic reasons for everything that has changed, what I have discovered is that roughing things up forces you to burst out of your bubble of complacency and get your act together.

In other words, God wants us to get rid of all the garbage mucked all over our luminous souls to fulfill our true potential.

Disaster Drives You to Dig Deeper

Let's take parenting for example.

Yes, at one point you could parent your children according to your own whims and moods as long as you covered the minimum bases set by your society.

But is that good for the parents?

No.

When there are no consequences to your lack of self-awareness and lack of introspection, then you tend to keep drifting along in whatever direction your ego or mindset takes you.

What chinuch problems do is they force you out of your complacency and stretch your mind to find other (and hopefully better) ways of relating to your children and raising them to be the best they can be.

And it's the same thing with shalom bayit.

When you or your spouse feel like divorce is on the horizon, it forces one or both of you to take a good hard look at what's really going on. You need to dig deeper. If divorce is really the best option, then take it. But sometimes it's not. It depends. There are people who turned to Hashem for even very serious shalom bayit problems, saying thank you and investing in long discussions and soul-searching with Hashem, people who eventually either found themselves getting divorced without suffering the usual grueling process involved in divorcing an abusive person, or they stayed married and the marriage became a happy one.

Health problems perform the same function. I've lost track of the number of people who suffered intolerable side effects (or lack of effectiveness) from conventional treatments, and who thus turned to herbs, better eating habits, exercise, and prayer as a more effective way of treating their illness.

This includes mental illness too. There are people who started digging deeper and got themselves off of medication (including for serious diagnosis that psychiatrists insist need life-long medication, like bipolar and schizophrenia). They looked at what the roots of their illness really were and made lifestyle and behavioral adjustments accordingly. They then passed on their newfound knowledge to others in order to help fellow sufferers.

Note: The process involved in overcoming a mental or physical illness, or in dealing with a severely dysfunctional marriage or really problematic children or any other grueling challenge is not simple or short. The above summaries should not be taken flippantly. The process is a lot of work. And sometimes, no matter what we do, we still don't get the desired result in the end because there are hidden metaphysical reasons why the desired result never arrives.

The True Story of the Man who Lost Everything

We either can't know the exact reasons or we can't know all the reasons for a particular tribulation. At the same time, many people suffering financial woes discovered, upon digging deeper, that their money came from a non-kosher source, or that they weren't honest in their dealings, or that they hadn't been giving tzedakah in the proper amounts.

In Rav Yehudah Hachassid's phenomenal compilation from the late 1100s, Sefer Chassidim, there's the true story of a formerly wealthy man who wept to his rebbe about his terrible suffering. Despite having had several children whom he married off and in whom he'd invested his wealth to set them up in their new homes, the formerly wealthy man was left without any progeny at all. His children all died before their time and before having children of their own and all the wealth he'd invested in them was lost too.

The man begged to know why Hashem left him lonely and poor in his old age.

The man admitted that while he'd never cheated or stolen from a fellow Jew, he did betray the trust of a non-Jew who'd appointed the man to manage the non-Jew's business and committed theft against that non-Jew.

"Indeed," the man mused, "my sorrows began right after his death."

The Rebbe then explained that after this non-Jew died, he complained before the Heavenly Court. Noting that the complaint was justified, the Heavenly Court decreed upon the Jewish man to lose all that he'd acquired in a forbidden manner, and that this was just punishment for his sin.

The Rebbe then reassured the man that he can still do teshuvah. The suffering he was experiencing was atoning for this sin and with teshuvah, the old man certainly had hope for eternal salvation when his time would come to stand before the Heavenly Court.______________A very sharp story indeed.

And as horrific as it is to lose all one's children without even being able enjoy the comfort of grandchildren, atoning for sins the Afterlife is even worse. Doing true teshuvah for his sin in This World enables him to see his children again in the Afterlife.

But the point is that without this tribulation, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't prevent the profound losses he suffered, he never would've investigated further and never would've discovered that the actions he considered permissible were in fact completely forbidden and looked upon with great severity in Shamayim.

Also, had he done some soul-searching prior to the non-Jew's death (when he could still ask forgiveness and pay him back), he could have averted the entire tragedy. And had he done some soul-searching after the first child died and sought out atonement then, he possibly could've prevented the loss of the other children.

We can't know for sure, but that's the implication.

Emuna Preppers

In summary, we're having a lot of problems in so many different areas.

Problems with no apparent solution, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we investigate and invest -- this means that there is only one solution: God.

Look, it's difficult.

I have wholeheartedly frum friends from yeshivish homes who, no matter how much they're suffering from one of their children, refuse to make God-connection and self-introspection the center of their efforts. They spend tons of money (which they don't have), endure humiliating situations, undergo enormous aggravation and frustration, hop from medication to medication, run all over the country and even fly out to other countries -- all in search of the solution to the problem.

Because of their own (understandable) issues, they feel they just can't turn to Hashem and start looking for the message in it all or begging Him to remedy things.

To compound the confusion, they also cling to a false feel-good pride in how much effort they're investing in helping their child. This feeling is misleading because they're feeling good about dancing around the solution rather than leaping into the only real solution available.

I understand why they do it because I used to do it too until I crashed and burned really badly. But all the understanding and justification in the world can't change the basic fact: Only Hashem can work the miracles they so desperately seek.

If you have issues with Hashem, like anger or fear or resentment or shame or suspicion or general lack of belief, then that needs to be dealt with according to your personality and level. A lot of people have issues with Hashem; it's quite normal even if it isn't discussed so much.

In that case, you can just start talking to Him about these issues and see where He leads you from there. You can also read Garden of Emuna, which addresses these issues (and a whole lot more) head-on, or you can read the classic mussar books, like Duties of the Heart, Pathways of the Just, Ways of the Righteous, Pele Yoetz, etc.

For works that aren't classic mussar and aren't obvious how-to books, but deliver great sustenance for the soul and powerful practical guidance, feel free to try out Words of Faith by Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender or Rav Ofer Erez's From the Depths.

If you want something bite-sized, then you can try out Rivka Levy's pocket-sized book The How, What, and Why of Talking to God, which contains very helpful guidance and tips, and can be read in half-an-hour.

(Links below.)

In this type of thing, you go according to what speaks to you and what works for you on whatever level you're holding on now.

But the main thing is to connect with Hashem emotionally with your heart in a way that is real.

The only way to merit Mashiach is via emuna.

And the only way to develop emuna is to turn to Hashem as the Source of everything, good and bad.

And if we won't turn to Him on our own, then He needs to overcome our resistance and turn us to Him against our will. (Or against the will of our yetzer hara, anyway. Our yetzer tov is quite happy to turn to Hashem.)

But it's all Love.

God wants a deep abiding connection with us because He loves us so much.

Sora was born in 1898 to a wealthy Chassidish family in Europe. Her parents brought a melamed (private teacher) to their home to teach the boys. Curious and intelligent, Sora sat herself in a corner of the room to listen. When the boys could no longer sit still, they ran off and the melamed continued teaching knowing that the little girl in the corner was still listening.

Because a proper Chassidish home of that time contained no books other than Torah books in Yiddish and Hebrew, Sora became accustomed to reading books like Orchot Tzaddikim/Ways of the Righteous and Tzena U'Rena for pleasure.

And so Sora grew under the tutelage of her Chassidish parents and the mussar and halacha Sora learned on her own, sheltered from the storms of change that unleashed upon so many souls.

Much later in life, Sora was sharing a home in America with her widowed daughter and little granddaughter. Sora's husband was dying and the family was preoccupied with his care, which demanded a lot of physical and emotional stamina during this trying time.

At one point, Sora trudged into the kitchen to get something and came upon her young granddaughter making a big mess with a large bowl of water and way too many soap suds. Sopping doll clothes lay scattered about.

This kind of mess was the last thing Sora needed at her age and at this trying time.

But never one to lose her composure, Sora thought a moment then calmly asked, "What are you doing?"

"Yes," said Sora, "I can see that your washing your dolly's clothes. But why?"

"Mmmm...because Zeidy's sick."

Sora thought for a moment, then said, "I see." Pause. "So you think that if you wash your doll's clothes, that's going to help Zeidy feel better?"

"Yep!"

In the course of the conversation, Sora discovered that her granddaughter had been watching everyone busying themselves around the house doing things for Zeidy (Grandpa). The tasks needed to be done properly and efficiently, so there was no opportunity to allow a young child to "help" as usual. Feeling helpless and desperate to contribute, the only thing the little girl could think to do was wash her doll's clothes.

"Well," Sora finally said. "Yes, I think it would make Zeidy very happy to know you were washing your doll's clothes for him, and that now they're all nice and clean. And you know what? As soon as he wakes up, I'm going to tell him what you did and he's going to be so happy to hear it."

The little girl started nodding and bouncing with pleasure.

"But right now," said Sora, "it would make Zeidy happiest if we clean all this up and then keep the floors neat and dry from now on. He'd feel a lot better if we did that. What do you say?"

"Oh, yes!" said the little girl. And she jumped up, went to get the mop, and together they cleaned up the mess and hung the doll clothes to dry.

And as long as her Zeidy's final illness lasted, the little granddaughter behaved herself very well.

And what could have been a bad memory for this granddaughter was transformed into a very positive memory. She felt loved and understood, and she learned how to really contribute in a stressful situation (i.e. sometimes the best thing to do is to stay out of the way and don't make a mess). She also learned from example the art of dealing with children (or with people in general): Don't assume.

Ask.

Neither Condemnation nor Coddling

Had Sora been influenced by the American parenting attitude of the Fifties, she likely would have jumped to labeling her granddaughter as "attention-seeking."

Especially because her granddaughter, intelligent and lovable as she was, also got up to some serious mischief at times, it would make sense to see the doll-laundering fiasco as a way to manipulate the adults to pay attention.

But that's not what the youngster was thinking. She wasn't thinking, "Ooh, I'm feeling so jealous and deprived of attention. I think I'll go make a big mess and then try to dupe everyone into thinking that I simply wanted to launder my dolly's clothes. Muwahahahaha!"

In fact, she wasn't thinking much at all. As far as the little girl knew, her only motivation was to get busy cleaning something for Zeidy.

On the other hand, had she been influenced by the not-yet-existent Eighties, the grandmother might've seen this as a cry for love and nurturing. "Poor baby! She's feeling lost and abandoned! She's impacted by all the tension and lack of attention, but has no way to express herself!" And then she'd receive lots of cuddling and maybe a big discussion to let out her feelings about what's going on with Zeidy.

And what's wrong with that?

Well, again, it's jumping to an assumption that's not necessarily true. It's closer to the reality than the pre-Sixties attitude, but at the same time, there ARE times in life where you just can't give a child your full attention, which is something children need to learn to deal with. Furthermore, children shouldn't be allowed to think that their negative emotions justify acting out or inconveniencing people who already have too much on their plate.

The Contemplative Torah Approach

Instead, Sora took a quintessentially Jewish way of dealing with it.

Just as the Ramban advised in his famous letter, she spoke all her words "b'nachat" -- with equanimity and pleasantness.

Sora also gave her granddaughter the benefit of the doubt, another Torah ideal. Yes, the child could've been manipulative and attention-seeking (children sometimes are), but what if she wasn't? This needed to be figured out.

And this is also where I think Sora's scholarship came into play. When reading the mussar books and Tanach commentaries, it's impossible to miss the contemplative inquisitiveness they display. First, they notice when passages or incidents don't add up. Then they calmly wonder why. After a contemplative analysis of all the relevant factors, they arrive at their penetrating conclusion.

When watching our gedolim questioned about complex or painful issues, it's impossible to miss their composure as their contemplative mind analyzes the facts at hand.

They're not unemotional or apathetic; they merely possess a high degree of yishuv hadaat -- a composed mind.

Even those who are naturally buoyant or fiery still express themselves within a framework of yishuv hadaat.

According to the Child's Way - For Real

So again, it took me a long time to realize the imperative to ask the child about his or her motivation.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I've only ever heard 2 options for raising children: pre-Sixties (yet post-1800s) and post-Sixties.

So it took me a while to grasp this investigative yishuv hadaat approach.

But I picked it up from hearing stories like this, stories about people who weren't influenced by psychologists of either era.

I also noticed this in memoirs from 19th-Century America. It was impossible to miss the long pauses adults incorporated into their dealings with errant children. Initially, I either saw this as a laconic backcountry communication style or I was confused -- this adult seemed so smart; why were they suddenly behaving in such a plodding manner?

And even when some kind of punishment was called for, it was often decreed with an absence of emotion. At times, the parent or teacher even seemed quite reluctant to administer any consequence.

Even odder, there were situations for which I was sure a child would be punished, but none was forthcoming. And again, this decision against punishment was determined by an adult who'd suddenly grown laconic and made his decision after a very long and contemplative silence.

This surprised me because child-rearing in "the olden days" is reputed to hold that sparing the rod meant spoiling the child -- and to interpret this (which is anyway a mistranslation) literally and unreservedly. (The real verse reads: "He who spares his shevet hates his son" -- and a shevet can be a rod, but it can also mean a structural framework, like a tribe, which is also called "shevet.")

Yet contrary to what I'd always heard, I discovered that people didn't jump to this option automatically. And even when they did utilize this option, it wasn't in a rage. Okay, yes, of course sometimes people were abusive and enraged, but it certainly wasn't a given.

I started to realize that people influenced by Tanach operate under a whole other behavioral system. All the more so, knowledgeable Jews with access to millennia of sagely scholarship and guidance.

In his 1824 masterpiece Pele Yoetz, Rav Papo clearly outlines the need to respond to each parenting situation according to its specific need. Sometimes a stern response is necessary, sometimes a soft response, and sometimes a parent should make himself as if deaf and blind!

It depends; there is no black-and-white approach to raising children.

Our Sages even composed a prayer for parents that asks Hashem for the wisdom to know when to laugh and when to rebuke, when to be stern and when to be pleasant, etc.

Practical Application

So this is what I'm working on now.

I know I tend to jump to conclusions with my children rather than taking the time to ask the right questions and to contemplate the answers and the situation at hand. (American culture seems to be phobic of conversational pauses.)

Sometimes I jump to a negative conclusion based on past experience with the child. But sometimes I jump to a positive conclusion that if wrong, can habituate the child toward being irresponsible, undisciplined, and narcissistic.

This is especially challenging when a child anyway displays a tendency to leap for looking, toward aggression, teasing, forgetting, daydreaming, or anything else. It's easy to assume that a child forgot to do something because he's anyway gets his head stuck in the clouds, or that a child started a fight because he anyway tends to do that.

But maybe not.

That's what I learned from the way Sora interacted with her own granddaughter.